Earlier this month, a man in the United Kingdom was sentenced to 14 years and eight months in prison after pleading guilty to numerous offenses related to the distribution of drugs. Thomas Maher managed a haulage business and coordinated shipments of drugs into the United Kingdom, with cash going in the opposite direction.
Maher was a prolific user of EncroChat, a network favored by organized crime groups across Europe to communicate and coordinate using messaging. Criminals had believed the network was encrypted and secure. Users were vetted, and all communications were trusted. The combined endeavors of multiple European law enforcement agencies broke into EncroChat, and for Maher and many other career criminals, the rest is history.
